<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Go Out With A Bang (Or Not) by ImACatWithABat</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295045">Go Out With A Bang (Or Not)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImACatWithABat/pseuds/ImACatWithABat'>ImACatWithABat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julie and The Phantoms (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, Fluff, Implied Character Death, Other, Reggie-centric (Julie and The Phantoms), i wanted to write about how i feel and reggie is the character i project on, is probably ooc, mentions of abuse, wish me luck y’all</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:28:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295045</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImACatWithABat/pseuds/ImACatWithABat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reggie has always been close with one of his friends, but they grow apart as they get older.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms) &amp; Everyone, Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms) &amp; Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Go Out With A Bang (Or Not)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was not unexpected. It was totally and completely transparent. One could even say it was inevitable. People rarely disappear in an instant (that’s what happens to Reggie. Here one hour, and gone the next). It’s a slow process, like fading away. And yet, Reggie is still surprised when he realizes Leo is gone.</p>
<p>    Leo and Reggie met in preschool, when Leo grabbed Reggie’s hand, dragged him to the playground, and told him they were best friends now. That story never failed to make their parents giggle, and tell Reggie and Leo how adorable their friendship was. So perfect a story it belonged in a novel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    Reggie takes karate when he’s little. He starts at age five, and doesn’t stop until his teacher retires when he’s eleven (he was almost a black belt too). The day his mom signs him up, he looks at her with huge, wonder-filled eyes and tells her he’ll always be able to protect her now. She hushes quickly, but gives him a big hug later. <br/>    Leo joins a while later, and then he and Reggie are unstoppable. They’re in the same class, and carpool to karate after school. Unless the other is sick, they’re always each other’s sparring partners, and they help each other get in and out of the heavy safety gear. They complain about the dumb mouth guards that make their mouths taste funny, and the shin covers that make it hard to walk.<br/>    And when it’s a parent’s night out at the school, they team up in dodgeball. Reggie sticks to the back and dodges balls like a bird learning to fly, and Leo’s right at the front, sniping the opposing team until they win. Later, when it’s nine o’clock (and dark, and it’s past Reggie’s bedtime, and he’s a little bit scared) and the teacher is showing a scary movie, Leo holds Reggie’s hand until his mom can pick him up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    Reggie doesn’t really want to go to sleep-away camp. He’ll miss his parents too much, and he’s never liked the outdoors anyway. But he finally agrees to go when his mom tells him she’ll give him money so he can buy a slushie at the camp store. At least Leo will be there. Camp might even be bearable with his best friend.<br/>    It’s not. The food’s horrible, there are spiders in his cabin, and the bathrooms are cracked and smell like the inside of an animal carcass. He calls home every single day, but his parents always tell him to suck it up until the end of the week (it’s not until he gets home on Saturday when he sees a bruise on his mom’s cheek, and notices a missing vase that he realizes why). His only comfort is Leo. His best friend who tells jokes to cheer him up, and offers to buy Reggie a camp-themed teddy bear. Reggie refuses Leo’s offers, but it really is the thought that counts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    Reggie can’t pinpoint when it happens, but it seems like all of the sudden, Leo is popular. He’s left the little group of friends that was assembled in fourth grade, and hangs out with “cool” people now. It’s in seventh grade that Reggie goes to Leo’s birthday sleepover, and it’s different. Instead of ordering pizza and sculpting nonsense with play-dough, everyone’s playing truth or dare, and talking about which girls they want to kiss. Reggie thinks that’s dumb, but he plays along anyway.<br/>    At a sleepover in eighth grade, it’s three in the morning and everyone else is asleep besides Reggie and Leo. They talk about what has happened lately, because Reggie switched schools last year, and they don’t talk as much. They’re talking about love now, and this time, Reggie has a crush of his own. Daniella is everything he could want in a crush, she’s sweet and pretty, and reminds him of a Disney princess. Reggie tells Leo about her, and they laugh for a while. Reggie is finally fitting in! But then the moment is over when he tells Leo he wants to hold hands with her on the swings, and say a funny pick-up line. Leo says that that’s for babies. Real teenagers don’t just want to hold hands.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    Reggie invites Leo to an amusement park one summer in ninth grade. They spend too much money on games and cheap food, and ride rollercoasters until they’re sick. Reggie finally feels like the friendship is back to normal. They laugh and joke like old times, and Reggie skips out of the park with a smile on his face. <br/>    Reggie hugs Leo when he says goodbye (and it’s the last hug they will ever have).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    Another year’s gone by, and they’ve only talked a few times. A conversation here and there about a show Reggie’s new band, Sunset Curve, performed, or a call late at night about how Leo did a new kind of trick on his skateboard. It’s not until a friend’s birthday that they see each other again.<br/>    Leo’s different. He’s so freaking different it makes Reggie want to cry. Leo stumbles out of his dad’s car an hour late to the party. He’s zoned out the whole time, and doesn’t talk for a good twenty minutes. When he does talk, it’s to brag about cheating on his new girlfriend. When they try to decide on a movie to watch, Leo insists they watch some new R-rated thing that has blood, and gore, and sex. Reggie just wants to leave. It’s just too hard to be around his oldest friend. He cries into his pillow when he gets home (and tries not to imagine what happened to Leo that changed him so much).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    It was not unexpected. It was totally and completely transparent. One could even say it was inevitable. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less when Reggie hears about the birthday party he wasn’t invited to. He can almost picture it: Leo and his new friends sitting around a table, laughing and playing party games. He’s got a girl next to him, and she kisses his cheek after he blows out the candles.<br/>    In history that week, they were taught about medieval tourture methods. In one, people would place a bucket of rats on someone’s stomach, and let them starve until they dug through the person’s insides trying to escape. Reggie feels like he has rats on his stomach when he thinks of Leo<br/>They’ve been together for more than half of Reggie’s life (and it will stay that way when he’s gone. 17 years - 6 years = 11 years. 11 years &gt; 6 years). Reggie writes song lyrics until he falls asleep with tears in his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>    Leo hasn’t thought about Reggie since sophomore year. He vaguely remembers his old friend was in a band, something like “Sunrise Serve”. It’s 1995 and he’s almost eighteen when he’s walking through a music store when he sees a CD    demo of Reggie’s band. “Good for him”, he thinks. He gives it no more thought.<br/>    It’s only when he reads the paper the next morning that he sees an article: “Sunset Curve: A Hollywood Tragedy”.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi! This is literally just a vent fic. It’s kinda angsty though, so I though I’d publish it. Thanks for reading, and all comments are appreciated!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>